The second annual Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee seeks submissions for a two-day graduatestudent conference to be held February 23 and 24, 2007, focusing on the theme"Performing (In)Visibility."

"Performing (In)Visibility" calls upon scholars to interrogate performance'sreliance on the visual and/or visible. Though performance is often imagined assome public spectacle, emphasizing its visibility may also call forth invisibleor non-visible functions of discursive performatives. Thus, proposals mightconsider how one visibly performs, what it means to perform something alreadyapparent, what goes unrecognized or gets left out of performances, and how wemight understand absence as an alternative performance. We are interested inhow tensions between visibility and invisibility, public and private, presenceand absence, and excess and restraint inform the ways we think aboutperformance/performativity as interdisciplinary theoretical constructs.

This year's keynote will be a performance of Michelle Matlock's The MammyProject. This work explores relationships between performance and identity asMatlock "traces the life and times of Nancy Green, the first woman hired toplay the part of Aunt Jemima," following the American Mammy icon throughhistory and popular culture.